Saturday, October 16, 2010



Wizard People, Dear Readers
or
A Love Letter To Mr. Neely




Dear Brad Neely,

We've known each other for a few years now. I remember when I first saw your commercial on Adult Swim for SuperDeluxe.com. Little did I know that when I visited that website I would fall in love.

Yes, Mr. Neely. I am in love with your work.

I'm not afraid to say it.

From the moment I first laid eyes on Babycakes, your bewildered, curious Man-child, I became obsessed. As I watched him try to make sense of his world, I reveled in each episode's insight and imagination. Not only did I see my Dungeons and Dragons obsessed friends in him, I saw myself. I wanted more.

Next, I met Professors Frank and Steve Smith, the first a whiny social misfit, the second a career dickhead. Together, The Professor Brothers made me laugh with abandon and gave me enough humorous quotes to last a decade.

You could have stopped there. You would have had me for life. But being the bright star that you are, you came up with this: a rapping Leprechaun.

I was so happy when I discovered your personal website and found your comics and drawings.

Little did I know that your masterpiece was yet to come.

One day, I stumbled across the "Illegal Art" website, and on it, your unauthorized work "Wizard People, Dear Reader." As the page instructed, I acquired a copy of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone on DVD, and synced up your audio tracks a la "The Dark Side of OZ." The results were astonishing. I was in stitches for hours, almost unable to breathe for laughing so hard. I was afraid to stop the tracks to catch my breath, for fear the jokes would lose their flawless timing.

"Wizard People, Dear Reader" is, without a doubt, the funniest movie spoof I have ever seen. You should know, Mr. Neely, that I am a devoted Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan as well, and take such material seriously.

Keep up the fantastic work.

Love,
Crazed Fan.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Garbage To Gold

or

Mush to Mush


The latest installment in my broke-ass cuisine series (and NO this isn't turning into a food blog. I've just been doing a lot of cooking. Don't look at me like that.) involves two apples waaaayyyy past their prime. We're talking 90 or 95 in apple years. Half-rotten would be more accurate than half-fresh.


They looked kinda like this:

Mmmmmmm. Yummy.

I felt sorry for them, to tell you the truth. I bought them in the peak of their flavor and freshness and then proceeded to neglect them on the counter. For an entire month. Reprehensible.

If I waited one more day, I knew that they would fester before my very eyes. Perhaps I could cook them into something useful, so their counter-top vigil would not have been in vain.

Then it came to me. Applesauce. Hell, they were already mushy. It wouldn't be a far stretch.

So I hacked 'em up, peeled off their wizened skin, and threw the chunks in a pot with a little water. To breathe life back into the decrepit fruits, I performed an Aztec ritual, sacrificing the body and blood of a supple virgin pear into the pot as well. Two sprays of butter flavored Pam. A pinch of salt. A 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Liberal cinnamon. Dashes of allspice and cloves. A tablespoon of vanilla. Then on went the lid.

I simmered the fruit for about 45 minutes, until the pieces mashed effortlessly with a flimsy plastic whisk. I left a few big chunks of fruit for texture.

We ate it while it was still hot, pouring a little milk over it to cool it off.

It was the best damned applesauce Greg and I had ever tasted.

Dem Bones
or
Broke Stocker



I'm broke, Gentle Readers. But that doesn't mean I can't eat well. If anything, I'm eating better than ever, thanks to cooking so often. One of my favorite foods is soup. It doesn't matter what kind. I just like food that doesn't overtax my misaligned jaw. I like to drink my meals, so to speak (like the blood sucking mosquito woman I am). When I have oodles of cash, I buy it prepared. Usually I go for the specialty stuff in the deli cold-case, but I do cans, too.

Well, that shit is expensive. Rather than give it up, I've gotten savvy. Now I make my own chicken stock out of veritable scraps.
I know there are tons of blogs all over the internet that describe this process, but screw it. I want to do it, too. I want you, Gentle Readers to picture me shuffling around the kitchen with a bottle of wine, ham-handedly pitching chicken parts at a stockpot. Here we go:

1) Buy a rotisserie chicken at Sam's Club for 5 bucks. Get the meatiest, largest bastard you can find. Greg and I did some weight comparison once, and there's a pound difference between the biggest and smallest ones. Observe:



2) Carve that bitch. You want dem bones for the stock, as well as the back meat, wings, and any gristle and skin. Reserve the breast meat for scrammitches or pasta or whatever. Eat the leg meats if you're hungry for chicken right away, but save the bones and skin. Or just strip the leg meat too. Cut off the wings and save them. Leave the meat on the back of the carcass. Except for the oysters. Because they are, as they say, les sot-l'y-laisse. Eat them while the chicken is still warm from the store.

3) Get your hands on some onions of any color you like. Yellow tends to be cheapest. If you're as broke as me, you can just use the brown, papery skins and chopped-off ends of each onion, and put the edible parts in a ziplock in the fridge. Get about 4 onions' worth of rubbish.

4) Get some celery. It doesn't matter if it's brownish or ugly. As long as it hasn't liquefied, you can use it. As with the onions, if you're broke, cut all the leafy bits and bottoms off of your nice edible ribs, and put the pretty bits in the fridge. What a great use for rubbish. Oh yeah, and those tiny baby ribs in the very center that are too small to eat - those go in the pot, too.

5) Carrot time. I used some bulk baby carrots that had seen better days, but you could use any. Even the "normal" carrots you see on sale in the grocery store. Tops, tips, wilted, whatever. You get it.

6) Raid your fridge. Eww, slimy scallions. A few salvageable sprigs of Italian parsley. A bell pepper on the verge of collapse. Mushroom stems. Why-the-fuck-do-we-have chives. You name it, it will probably work, and will probably kick ass. Me, I had some leeks I had bought on sale at the Asian market 3 weeks prior. Pulled off the outer layer, and they were good to go.
7) Time to bust things up. Rough chop your veggies (you'll be straining them out later). Pry apart your chicken carcass with your hands, and try to break a few of the bones. Separate rib-cage from spine. Rend the fragile wing bones and howl at the moon.

8) You must have cloves of garlic, chopped in half. This is non-negotiable. You must have many. Like, 7 of them

9) Throw all your goodies in whatever big pot you have available. Fill the rest of the pot with water, plus a goodly slosh of whatever wine you're drinking at the moment. Add peppercorns if you have them. And if you want to be as cool as me, throw in 2 or 3 bay leaves. BUT DON'T ADD SALT. You can salt the stock when you turn it into soup.

10) Put the disgusting-looking swill on the stove. Bring it to a simmer, then turn it down just a touch, and throw a lid on it. After 1 hour, your house should smell fantastic. Simmer for 3-4 hours. Uncover. Skim off any white foam that comes to the top. Allow the liquid to reduce a little for another 30 to 60 minutes. Eyeball it. Give it a taste. Too weak? Let more liquid die off. Too strong? No such animal.

11) Allow the swill to cool. Strain out all the solids. You are now the proud owner of a pot of chicken stock.

12) If you put your stock in the fridge overnight, you can skim off all the fat that rises to the surface. It doesn't taste any different, and it's healthier that way.

13) You can freeze stock.

14) Make some SOUP. Or something. I mean, you could use it to cook rice or veggies, I guess, but then you wouldn't have SOUP. Maybe next time I'll give you a soup recipe.

You wouldn't believe the awesome stuff that Greg and I have made with our stocks. Soups, of course. And Greg reduced some of his so much, it became a syrupy chicken demi glace. We've been adding spoonfuls of the demi to our sauteed veggies, and nearly weeping at the glory.


Happy carcass boiling!

Edit: 10/9/2010 A vegetarian friend of mine reminded me that you can do the same thing with just the veggie peels and tops and whatnot to create veggie stock. Thanks, dude. I should have mentioned that! But yes, it works equally well that way. (Though, if I were going to do that, I'd use a few whole onions as well, instead of just tops. Maybe reduce it a little more than usual. Still delicious!)